PETERBOROUGH star Scott Nicholls admitted it was “spirit” that won them a second successive Championship Fours title.

The Panthers wrapped up a fiercely-contested meeting at Redcar on Sunday with the former Grand Prix star snatching the winning points in the final heat.

Glasgow captain Chris Harris led the decider with Nicholls holding onto the vital point to keep the trophy at the East of England Arena in a tense finale.

But Harris then saw his bike drop a chain and that sparked wild celebrations from the Panthers camp.

Nicholls said: “There’s a togetherness at Peterborough. Everyone is pulling in the right direction and that showed today.

“The spirit is so good with everyone and that gives you a desire to win. I didn’t do what I can today but the boys were really strong and got us over the line.

“It’s a great boost for the club and totally what the promotion deserve. They’ve worked hard for this.”

Harris admitted he was “devastated” after the broken chain broke Glasgow hearts.

Harris said: “I’m obviously gutted. I was leading the last race and although Scott Nicholls was getting the point to win it for Peterborough, he could have been passed to give us a run-off for the title.

“But it just wasn’t to be for us. It was a brand new chain as well, just put it on at the start of the meeting. You need luck in meetings like this and it deserted us today.

“We gave it our all today. We had an awful start but built some momentum and it felt good once we made the final, I fancied our chances.

“Peterborough looked like they were going to sneak it but we had a big chance until the chain broke on me. It’s a tough one to take for us all.

“We now just have to look ahead and concentrate on the league and do everything we can to get into the play-offs. That’s our priority.

“Hopefully our performance today will lift the boys and give us some extra confidence to take into our home meeting on Friday against Lakeside.”

Edinburgh’s Erik Riss was outstanding all afternoon but the Monarchs finished second despite missing top man Ricky Wells.

Riss said: “I thought we did really well. We were missing Ricky but everyone gave 100 per cent and we still got second. No one expected us to do that so it’s a good result.

“Of course we would have liked to win but we came close for the fans.”